Page 111 of Breakneck Hockey

“Mitch! Mitchy we?—”

There’s a woman, spinning a little girl into her, attempting to avert her eyes. But it’s too late. They’ve all seen my freshly spent penis. This is Sutter’s family, isn’t it? And here I thought our equally volatile dispositions would be responsible for our demise. This. This is how we end, before we ever get started. Because I can never look them in the face, ever. I’m going to live under a rock from this point on. Change my name. Dye my hair so I’m unrecognizable and move to a tiny island where no one knows who I am.

Sutter’s large hands cover my dick, but that doesn’t really help, so I’m suddenly stumbling behind him.

“You’re home early,” Sutter says.

Sutter’s stepdad gives him what I imagine to be a very dad sort of look. “Meet us in the kitchen, Mitchell.”

The whole interaction took a minute, tops, but it feels like eternities have passed. New planets have been formed. New species have evolved into being.

“It’s been nice knowing you, Sutter,” I say as I pull up my pants, covering my wilted cock.

“C’mon. We’ll be fine. They’re cool, just a little shocked. I don’t bring men home.” He holds his hand out.

I stare at it as if it might grow teeth and bite me. “What the fuck is happening, Sutter?”

He shrugs. “Don’t know, but let’s find out, eh?”

I might regret this. No, I definitely will regret this. But I have never made the right decision about Sutter in my life. Why start now? I take his hand and follow him down whatever trail of hell he’s leading me toward this time.

Chapter 21

Meet the Parents

Sutter

Sooooo, that didn’t go as planned. Mom always keeps mac ‘n’ cheese in the house. I had this big idea to show him the bike, bring him in here, make him four boxes of mac ‘n’ cheese, tell him we were boyfriends, and then fuck him in my old room. Alderchuck’s enticing ass ruined all that. I couldn’t keep my hands off him, and I jumped the gun. It’s his fault.

Dad’s fiddling with the coffee machine as I strut in, hand-in-hand with my Alderchuck. Ma’s putting out every cookie and baked good she has in the house. Casey’s stomach growls. Ma loves to feed people, and she just met her match. I can’t wait to see which folds first, Ma’s tenacity to fill your plate, or Casey’s bottomless pit of a stomach.

Isla’s got her notebook set before her, a smirk that’s too much like mine on her face, and a crayon in her hand. What is she up to?

“Hey, Ma!” I say, hoping she didn’t grab her slipper for this. Getting my ass kicked by my mom in front of Casey wouldbe more than a little embarrassing. “I thought you weren’t supposed to be home until tonight?”

“Clearly,” she says, smirking like Isla. Okay, maybe it’s not my smirk, but hers.

“Coffee?” Dad says.

“Yeah, I’ll take some. Coffee, baby?” Shit. I might be using that word a tad too much. I didn’t mean to say it in front of my parents.

Mom’s eyes rake me up and down.Oh, really?they say. Fuck. This is terrible. Fucking terrible.

“Love some,” Casey says. “Hi, I’m Casey Alderchuck, Mrs. Sutter, I mean Mrs. Sutter’s mom. Or, uh … oh God. And, um, sorry about my …” He gestures toward his penis, his face blooming a bright cherry red.

Ma smiles and I know she just fell in love with him. “Call me Marie, Casey. Don’t worry about earlier—one hundred percent Mitchell’s fault, not yours, and I’ll have words with him later about it.”

“Wow, your mom’s cool, Sutter.” He smiles at my scowl and sits on the bench seat at the kitchen table across from Isla.

“Why do you call my brother Sutter?” she says.

“Because we’re hockey players. Can I write something with you?”

She rips a paper from her book and hands Alderchuck her crayon. “I’ll need three, no five reasons why you like my brother, and then I can start your application.”

“Okay.”

I squeeze into the corner by the wall beside him and extend my leg across the bench behind him, feeling the need to have some part of me touch him. It’s not claiming, exactly—I’m not jealous of my family’s attention on him—but I like showing people he’s mine.

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